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Teisho 6: If Parshvas Doesn't Inspire You
Thursday, October 11, 2001
from the series “Turning the Wheel of the Way"
Commentaries of Dogen's "Gyoji: Continuous Practice"
Presented by Ven. Anzan Hoshin roshi
© Copyright 2001 White Wind Zen Community
Dogen zenji says:
Throughout his whole life, the Tenth Ancestor, Parshva, never let his ribs
touch the ground in order to lie down. Although he began his practice when
he was eighty he soon received the one-to-one transmission of the great
Dharma. Since he did not waste away a moment, in three short years of
intense effort he came to receive the one-to-one transmission of the Eye of
the Dharma of Utter Awakening.¹ 
This Venerable One was in his mother’s womb for sixty years, and was
born with hair already grey. He was called the “Rib Saint” because of his vow
to never lie down like a corpse. In the dark, his hands radiated light so that
he could study the sutras, an ability that he had been born with. When the
Rib Saint was eighty, he left his household and took on the dark robes. When
a young person in the city invited him for the noon meal, he criticized this,
saying, “You are a doddering old man. How can you be so dim? Those who
take their home-leaving vows do two things: they practice zazen and chant
the sutras. You are too old and feeble to do either. You will only sully the pure
stream as a monk that can do nothing but eat.” The Rib Saint listened to this
criticism, thanked the people there, and made this vow: “If I do not master
the three baskets, cut through the desires of the three conditional realms of
experiences, and obtain the six uncommon knowledges,² and unfold the eight
liberations,³ I will never lie down on my side.” From then on, every day, he
practised whether he was walking about or sitting still or standing. During the
day he studied the sutras, and at night he did zazen. And so, through three
years of continuous practice he mastered the three baskets, cut through the
                                                
1
Sambodhi.
2
Abhijna. The six are: subtle vision (divyacaksu), subtle hearing (divyasrotra), knowing the thoughts of
others (paracittajnana), knowing past and future lives (purvaparanivasanusmrtijnana), knowing magical
activity (rddhividhijnana), knowing the end of all outflows (asravaksayajnana).
3
Vimoksa: seeing of form by one who has form; seeing external form by one who knows internal
formlessness; embodying and stabilizing the joy of freedom; going past concepts of materiality, resistance,
and diversity into unbounded space; transcending this and entering into unbounded consciousness;
transcending this and entering into nothingness; transcending this and entering into neither consciousness
nor unconsciousness; transcending this state and entering into no-reference point or cessation.